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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25254652">The Sparks Between Us</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending'>Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bonding Over A Love of Mechanisms, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Literal Sleeping Together, Nightmares, Other, spoilers for episode 160</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:55:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,381</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25254652</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A spark jumps from Cel’s hand to hers as she takes it, something that Earhart finds more surprising than painful. </p>
<p>Cel’s smile turns apologetic as they shake Earhart’s hand. “Sorry,” they say. “That happens sometimes. Actually that happens a lot.”</p>
<p>“Really?” Earhart keeps her hand in Cel’s a moment longer than perhaps is necessary, noting the strength in their grip, the fine tremor of the muscles in their fingers, energy needing an escape.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amelia Earhart/Celiquillithon "Cel" Sidebottom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Sparks Between Us</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I *need* these two to interact and I am not a very patient person, so I wrote fic to cope until (hopefully) the next episode.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In Earhart’s nightmares, her crew screams.</p>
<p>They had screamed at the time too, she’s sure, though she hadn’t been able to hear anything after the dragon fire had hit her ship, after the first engine had exploded. There had only been a high-pitched whine in her ears after that. She hadn’t been able to hear her crew screaming, or the crackling of the fire burning. She hadn’t heard the roar of the Meritocrat either, but she had felt it vibrating in the blood and bones of her through the ship’s wheel.</p>
<p>It vibrates in Earhart still as she opens her eyes in the dark hotel room she’s spent the better part of a week in. For a moment she lets herself tremble, her body curled in on itself so tightly that she feels her muscles cramping, before she forces herself to stretch out, though she doesn’t close her eyes again. She automatically looks to her left, to the chair that Azu had spent several days in while looking after her. It’s empty now, and Earhart is glad of that even as she admits to herself that even though she had resented the paladin’s presence at first, she had both grown used to it and had drawn comfort from it in short order.</p>
<p>Not that Earhart <i>deserves</i> comfort of course. But people get what they don’t deserve sometimes, don’t they? Her crew certainly had.</p>
<p>She tries to go back to sleep, she does, but the screaming seems to start again the instant she closes her eyes. This time when she opens her eyes she sits up in bed as well, staring at the wall across from her until her breathing slows and the shaking stops. She pours herself a glass of water from the pitcher beside her bed, drinking it in long, slow sips. She wishes it was something else, something that would warm her insides and dull her senses, but no. She has a goal, a project, and she needs a clear head for that. She’ll have a drink over the corpse of the Meritocrat that destroyed half her ship and all of her crew. She’ll make a night of it.</p>
<p>Her ship. Earhart hasn’t seen her ship in months. She knows it’s being worked on, of course. Azu had told her as much, as had Zolf. Hamid was on site every day, and had tried to give her a report once, stumbling over his words as he had tried to recall the progress that had been made. It hadn’t mattered. She had been too focused on the brass scales shining across his cheeks and throat, on the kobold that had been standing next to him, who had been staring at her with glittering eyes. Earhart had promised Zolf she would take his group anywhere they needed to go, and she would keep that promise as long as they kept theirs, but that doesn’t mean she has to speak to Hamid any more than she has to. She wonders if he might be a problem at some point, but that’s a thought for later, not for now. Now she’s thinking about her ship while looking at the curtains that are drawn across the room’s single window. It’s dark still, with no hint that dawn is coming anytime soon.</p>
<p>They would take her to her ship if she asked. Azu would smile at her request most likely, would hover and fuss. Zolf wouldn’t smile. Earhart has a feeling that the muscles of his face would creak if he did, like a worn spring. He wouldn’t hover, wouldn’t fuss, but his silent concern would be a tangible thing. She’d rather go alone, at least the first time.</p>
<p>She dresses in the dark, her clothes worn and familiar against her skin, mended and not smelling at all like smoke, like fire, like blood. She leaves her captain’s hat behind. She still doesn’t know if she’ll buy a new one or go without, but she thinks she’s done with that one, done with it forever.</p>
<p>— — —</p>
<p>Earhart has been out of commission for months and barely been back on her feet for a week. Still, she manages to sneak through the streets to the aeroport and then into the back where her ship is being kept with relative ease. Try as she might, she can’t actually remember landing the ship. She remembers fire, remembers heat, remembers pain in her side from shrapnel, remembers limping along with one engine, not eating, not sleeping, just flying over the ocean, desperate for the sight of land. She remembers looking at her ship <i>after</i> she had landed, or at least looking at what had been left of it, wondering if it would ever fly again, wondering if it mattered.</p>
<p>The ship she’s looking at now is hers, she knows that as well as she knows her own name, but it looks so different from the wreck she left behind that all she does for a moment is blink in surprise. The back half of the ship has been almost completely rebuilt, the slightly different shade of the wood being the only sign of the repair. The wings on the side were longer than she remembers, sleeker, and she finds herself nodding in approval at the design before her eyes and her feet lead her over to where a halfway assembled engine is sitting next to rows and rows of parts, all carefully and meticulously sorted. Earhart’s hands itch for a wrench.</p>
<p>“Hello?”</p>
<p>Earhart whirls around, swearing as she goes first for her gun (which Azu had taken and not returned) and then for her rapier (she has a hazy memory of pawning it so she could buy more alcohol) before settling for curling her hands into fists.</p>
<p>The person in front of them, dressed in a shirt with no sleeves and a pair of pants with an incredible amount of pockets, has their hands up, one holding a vial of something that sparkles and fizzes, the other held out as if to ward off an attack.</p>
<p>Earhart’s been a quick thinker, always has been. She realizes she’s heard this voice before in the hallways of the hotel outside her room, notes the smudges of grease on this person’s hands and puts that together with Hamid’s stammering report, with Zolf assuring her that, “Cel’s taking good care of your ship.”</p>
<p>“Cel?” Earhart guesses, not lowering her hands.</p>
<p>“Captain Earhart?” Cel asks almost at the same time.</p>
<p>Earhart winces and unclenches her hands. “Just Earhart please.” It’s not as if she doesn’t have a first name, she just isn’t sure she can handle the familiarity of it at the moment. “You <i>are</i> Cel?”</p>
<p>“Yup, that’s me!” Cel transfers the vial in they’re holding to a loop on their belt and takes a step forward, offering their hand. “Celiquillithon Sidebottom, pleasure to meet you.” They smile brightly. “Just Cel is fine, I know my name is a mouthful for most everyone.”</p>
<p>Earhart takes in a few more details about Cel as she crosses the gap between them to shake their offered hand. One of their ears is pointed, and presumably the other one had been as well before whatever accident had reduced it. Their hair, blonde shot through with silver, is messy in such a way that Earhart can’t tell if it’s a deliberate choice or evidence that they’ve just woken up. What interests her most though is the scar that runs from the back of Cel’s right hand and up their arm, a dark, branching Lichtenberg scar, the mark of lightning permanently etched into their flesh.</p>
<p>A spark jumps from Cel’s hand to hers as she takes it, something that Earhart finds more surprising than painful.</p>
<p>Cel’s smile turns apologetic as they shake Earhart’s hand. “Sorry,” they say. “That happens sometimes. Actually that happens a <i>lot</i>.”</p>
<p>“Really?” Earhart keeps her hand in Cel’s a moment longer than perhaps is necessary, noting the strength in their grip, the fine tremor of the muscles in their fingers, energy needing an escape.</p>
<p>“I think it’s from working with lightning elementals,” Cel says matter of factly. “Or rather, <i>fighting</i> lightning elementals when they won’t just stay nicely where they’re put. I mean, that’s not too much to ask, is it? <i>I </i>don’t think so, but then they get loose and get <i>very</i> unhappy and all zappy which is not a fun time unless you’re into that sort of thing, but I mean, there’s a time and place for that, you know?” Cel runs a hand through their hair, causing it to stick up even more than it had been. “Anyway, I wasn’t expecting anyone to come by until morning, unless it <i>is </i>morning and time has gotten away from me again.”</p>
<p>“It’s still the middle of the night,” Earhart tells them. “I couldn’t sleep.” No need to tell them why.</p>
<p>“Oh me either,” Cel says. “There’s so much to do, after all! Would you like a tour? And tea? I can make tea?”</p>
<p>Earhart has never had very strong feelings about tea, but the hopeful way Cel says it makes the corners of her mouth twitch up into the closest she’s come to a smile in months. “Yes to both.”</p>
<p>———</p>
<p>Earhart knows she’s in trouble as soon as she lays eyes on Cel’s teapot, a contraption of metal and more gears than one would normally see on such a thing, if Earhart herself hadn’t tried to do something similar to a coffeepot more than once. The results had been less than successful at making coffee than they had been at exploding, which had been useful at least as a distraction during an attempted hijacking. Telling Cel that story leads them into a conversation about steam and pressure and explosives, leads into a discussion about the engines for the ship, about fuel lines, about types of elementals. Three cups of tea later Earhart is up to her elbows in the engine Cel is rebuilding, discussing the pros and cons of different metal alloys, and catches herself staring at the muscles in their arms, realizes that she can’t look Cel in the eye or she’ll lose the thread of what they’re talking about.</p>
<p>Earhart has a type and knows what she likes. Things like physical attractiveness is not at the top of the list for her, though Cel is far from hard to look at. Earhart values a quick mind, values cleverness and ingenuity, so it’s no wonder that she loses herself in the conversation, in the work that they’re doing together. For a moment she forgets <i>why</i> she’s here, what drove her to seek out her ship while everyone else was sleeping.</p>
<p>“And I <i>have </i>to show you what I did with the helm,” Cel is saying, gesturing with a wrench for emphasis before using it to tighten a bolt. “There was a lot of damage, but a lot of the underlying structures were intact enough to give me an idea of how things were meant to work. I think I might have improved the steering, though I won’t know until we get your ship back up in the air—“</p>
<p>Cel keeps speaking. Earhart knows this because she can see their lips moving, but soon even that fades away and the only sound is a high pitched whine in her ears, the only sight in front of her the ship burning, her crew burning, the flames reflecting off of golden scales covered in blue veins like fungus. Her hands are gripped so tightly on the cracked and splintered captain’s wheel, as if it’s the only thing keeping her alive, keeping her safe…</p>
<p>“—Safe.” Cel’s voice is quiet, and yet somehow she hears it over the whining in her ears. “Earhart, it’s Cel, you’re here with me in the hangar and you’re safe.”</p>
<p>Earhart blinks and the image of golden scales gives way to Cel’s eyes, one more blue than grey, one more grey then blue. Cel’s kneeling in front of her, the excitement and passion that their face had held moments ago gone, replaced with worry, with concern. Not pity, there’s that at least, that’s something, but there’s a tenseness in Cel’s expression that Earhart doesn’t understand until she realizes that she’s holding Cel’s hands so hard that she can feel the creaking of tendons underneath her fingers. She lets go as soon as she realizes, bringing her hands up to wipe at the tears she feels running down her face.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Earhart says, her voice steady despite her tears. She’s gotten so good at sounding calm while crying in such a short amount of time.</p>
<p>“Nothing for you to apologize for,” Cel tells them, reaching into one of their many pockets before producing a handkerchief and pressing it into Earhart’s hand. “Here. Don’t go rubbing grease into your eyes, that’s just adding insult to injury.”</p>
<p>Earhart cleans off her face, feeling tired and drained in a way she hadn’t felt for the last few hours. The reprieve had been wonderful while it had lasted.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Cel says softly.</p>
<p>Earhart’s head jerks up at that, the words dragging her out of her thoughts. “For what?”</p>
<p>“I shouldn’t have mentioned the helm,” Cel says. “I mean, I wasn’t going to bring up what happened, not outright, not unless you brought it up first. I wanted to give you space to talk about it or not talk about it, but I got so caught up in talking about the ship and you seemed so interested and sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my thoughts and then it was too late.”</p>
<p>“It’s…” Earhart wants to say it’s fine, or that it’s all right, but neither of those feel strictly true, and she doesn’t have the energy for deception. “I’d like to see it. The helm. If you would show me.”</p>
<p>“Are you sure?”</p>
<p>Earhart nods. “I should get used to it. Since… since I’m the captain.” Her lips twitch, but the smile that sits inside her refuses to manifest. “And I really <i>would</i> like to hear about any improvements you’ve made.”</p>
<p>Cel gives her a ghost of their former grin in return. “I can do that.”</p>
<p>“So,” Earhart says as they board the ship. “They told you what happened.”</p>
<p>“I had it mostly figured out as soon as I took a good look at the ship,” Cel says. “I’ve seen my fair share of explosions, after all. Been the cause of a lot of them too. It was obvious to me that the engine exploding happened <i>after</i> your ship had been hit by something a lot hotter than regular fire. I didn’t know it was a— a Meritocrat until Zolf told me though.” They stumble over the word <i>Meritocrat</i> as if they’re not used to saying it, and Earhart wonders what that’s like, to have said and thought the word so seldom that one could have a hard time recalling how to say it.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry about what happened,” Cel continues. “To you. The crew. Your ship.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Earhart says with a tired sigh. “Yeah. Me too.”</p>
<p>The helm looks different, and part of Earhart is glad of that even as it hurts her heart and makes her brain itch all at once. The floorboards feel different under her feet, the controls are slightly off center, the texture of the ships’s wheel feels wrong when she puts her hands on it. It feels <i>right </i>that it’s wrong though. She’ll have to relearn the ship at the same time she’ll be relearning how to… well, how to live.</p>
<p>“Do you want to talk about it?” Cel asks from behind her, and Earhart shakes her head.</p>
<p>“Not now. Just… not now. Tell me what you’ve done here instead.”</p>
<p>Cel does. Earhart closes her eyes and listens to them, waits for the explosion, waits for the screaming faces of her crew to appear before her, for the sky to catch fire. None of that happens. There’s just the words, and when Cel finishes Earhart turns to them. The smile that comes to her face is slight, but it <i>is</i> a smile.</p>
<p>“Couldn’t have done any better myself, which is saying a lot, coming from me. Thank you.”</p>
<p>“I mean, it wasn’t <i>just</i> me,” Cel says. The tip of one ear turns red in a blush. “Zolf’s going to be the one summoning elementals, and the kobolds have been helping too…”</p>
<p>“Still,” Earhart says quickly, not wanting to think about the kobolds, about scales and claws. “Thank you.” She reaches into the pocket of her coat and pulls out her ship’s manifest. Not the old one. The new one, the one with all her notes, her sketches, her plans.</p>
<p><i>You’re going to get them killed</i>, Earhart hears herself say. But it’s not like her plans are a secret, and she’s only known Cel for a few hours and already she can tell that there’d be no way to stop Cel from helping her build something short of chaining them up somewhere, and that probably wouldn’t stop them either. “Did they tell you what I asked for, in exchange for taking you all to Svalbard?”</p>
<p>“You want us to help you kill the Meritocrat who attacked you,” Cel says. “Which is <i>completely </i>understandable.”</p>
<p><i>I want to kill all of them</i>, Earhart thinks but does not say. They’ll be time enough for that later.</p>
<p>“I have some ideas,” Cel says, pulling out a notebook from yet another pocket. Earhart is starting to wonder if their pants are enchanted somehow, to have so many things in so many pockets. “Highly experimental of course. Gold dragons are weak to cold, at least that’s what I’ve heard, so I was thinking…” They start flipping through pages as they sit down on the floor. After a moment, Earhart joins them, something warm lodging in her chest. Maybe it’s hope. Maybe it’s something more.</p>
<p>— — —</p>
<p>It turns out even the excitement of sharing ideas and drawing up plans can hold off exhaustion for only so long. Earhart doesn’t even realize she’d been dozing off until her chin hits her chest and she straightens up with a jerk.</p>
<p>Cel yawns and rubs at their eyes. “I can barely see straight. How about we get some sleep and reconvene over breakfast? I’m sure everyone else would like to hear what we’re up to.”</p>
<p>Earhart hasn’t actually had a sit down meal with everyone yet, and she’s not exactly looking forward to the prospect. Still, it can’t be helped. She’ll have to get used to Wilde’s presence at the very least. With Cel there the idea seems…. Tolerable. “Sounds like a plan,” Earhart says, echoing Cel’s yawn as she stands up.</p>
<p>The two of them look at each other for a long moment.</p>
<p>“I’ll walk you back to the hotel if you want,” Cel says. “But you can sleep here if you’d rather not. I have a hammock set up. Give me ten minutes and I can make you one too.”</p>
<p>“Or we could share,” Earhart says. It’s a line she’s used before, but there’s nothing seductive in the way she says it now. There’s an odd echo to her words, and Earhart has a moment to wonder if it’s her exhausted mind playing tricks on her before she realizes that Cel had said the exact same thing, at the exact same time.</p>
<p>Earhart laughs, laughs in the way that people do when things are terrible and wonderful and they’re too tired for sense. There is no reason for her heart to speed up when Cel’s laughter blends with hers. There is every reason.</p>
<p>When Cel helps her up into the hammock, there’s another one of those sparks when their hands meet, and Earhart waves away the apology when Cel offers it again. She’s already getting used to the feeling of it, even though she shouldn’t, just like she shouldn’t enjoy the closeness of Cel against her. She doesn’t deserve it. But then, people get what they don’t deserve sometimes.</p>
<p>“‘Night,” Cel murmurs.</p>
<p>“Good night,” Earhart says, or dreams she says. She waits for the screaming, for fire and golden scales and an endless nightmare of a flight. Instead she dreams of standing on the deck of her ship, watching lightning leap from cloud to cloud like deer, a familiar hand clasped in hers.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I’m <a href="http://angel-ascending.tumblr.com">angel-ascending</a> over on Tumblr and <a href="http://twitter.com/angel_in_ink">angel_in_ink</a> over on Twitter if y’all want to stop by and say hi!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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